Description

Criterion Barrels is well known for its wide selection of premium match grade rifle barrels. Many in the firearm industry are unaware that the majority of our capacity is allocated toward OEM services for a wide range of premium rifle and barrel manufacturers. While many barrel manufacturers limit themselves to a single rifle platform or a selection of barrel blanks, Criterion offers a full spectrum of services for many custom rifle shops and manufacturers of various different sizes.

Production

Our barrels and blanks are manufactured with gun barrel quality, ordnance-grade 4150 chrome moly steel and gun barrel quality 410 or 416R stainless steel. Both materials are heat treated and double stress relieved when they arrive from the mill.

All operations from drilling to milling are performed in-house. For the finishing operations we don’t perform (chrome-lining, salt bath nitriding, and phosphate parkerizing), we partner with local businesses who meet our quality standards.

Our in-house operations are described below.

Button Rifling

Our button rifling operation is second to none in the firearm industry. Buttons are finished in-house, allowing us to maintain tolerances not found with other manufacturers. Our custom built CNC button rifling machine allows us to offer twist uniformity exceeding standards previously only offered with single point cut rifling techniques.

Chrome-lining

Chrome-lining will extend the life of your barrel and make it easier to clean. It is commonly thought that chrome-lining degrades the accuracy of the barrel. This is because during the chrome-lining process, material is chemically removed from the bore and then built back up with chrome, destroying the bore uniformity.

Lapping

Most production barrels are generally not lapped; however, the lapping process is absolutely essential for accuracy. For this reason, before chambering and crowning operations, we lap the bores to remove tooling marks and to improve the surface finish and bore uniformity.

Turning and Milling

We have three CNC turning cells and two additional milling cells to accomplish various contours.

Heat Treating

Button rifling does put stress into the steel. That is why we thoroughly stress relieve the barrels again after buttoning to ensure dimensional integrity during the turning and milling operations. By internalizing this heat treating operation we are able to more effectively remove any residual stresses resulting from the button rifling operation.

Over 30 years of experience and expertise go into every Criterion barrel. This experience combined with gun barrel quality steels, our stringent inspections at every process, and Criterion employees’ commitment to quality make a Criterion barrel the best choice for your next barrel.